The social function of trust and implications for e-commerce

J Firmstone and David E. Morrison

This paper draws on sociological theories of trust to examine the role of trust within modern society.

The Social Function of Trust and Implications for E-commerce

David E. MorrisonJulie Firmstone Research Centre for Future Communications, University of Leeds UK

INTRODUCTION

Within marketing, the word trusthas come to occupy a heightened status of attention, but yet one often finds little analytical rigour in the conceptualisation of trust. Possibly because it is a word that features strongly in our everyday lexicon of usage it is felt unnecessary to apply careful attention to its meaning we feel that we know what we mean when we use the word. And of course we do in...

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